


Ruin

by emmram



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Gen, s6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-17
Updated: 2011-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-27 11:09:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmram/pseuds/emmram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU after 6.16. Uriel's returned, with his own agenda to restart the Apocalypse. He kidnaps Sam and Dean as a means to this end, but none of them are prepared for what happens next...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ruin

**Author's Note:**

> Written for radiumgirl's prompt in the first-anniversary comment-fic meme at the ohsam comm on LJ during March 2011. Warnings for plenty of blood, gore, torture, and aaaaaaangst.

**  
_  
Ruin   
_   
**

For a Vessel destined to hold one of their very best, it is incredibly fragile.

Bones break under his gentlest touch – _snap, snap,_ then _scrrich_ as he grinds the fragments together. It doesn't scream much anymore, breath coming in stuttering gasps as its ribs dip and creak and shift. Uriel removes his hand from its chest and traces a hand upward, drawing slow, lazy circles around the bloody sockets that once held its eyes.

"Can you see?" he asks. "Can you _see_ now, Sam?"

It continues to gasp and twitch, a low pathetic noise emerging from the back of its throat. If Uriel leans a little closer, he can make out half-formed words – _please Dean no please_ – repeated over and over in a desperate litany. He sighs, digs a finger into an empty socket until Sam actually screams, broken body arching awkwardly off the mattress.

 _This is the problem_ , Uriel thinks. _Give animals the power of thought and expression, and they drown themselves in so much hubris that they can't see the truth_. Even _this_ – the one that the Bringer of Light holds in such great esteem, does not seem to be able to resist its human trappings. Even with the stench of sulphur coiling within its veins; even with Lucifer's mark branded into its soul.

"Shall I take your tongue next, Sam?" he asks it pleasantly. "Then perhaps you will have one less distraction."

It whines, trying to move away even now, the arm that's not twisted and bent double grabbing desperately at the edge of the mattress. Uriel reaches out, grabs its jaw.

Its garbled screams echo in the small room.

* * *

 _Nobody ever dies_.

"Hey. Sam. You okay?"

 _They only get recycled. From one plane to another, and back again_.

"W-what? Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. Why?"

 _Hell to Heaven, and everything in between. Such a waste, Sammy. Such a waste._

"I don't know – you looked kind of spaced-out over there."

 _Do you understand that your kind is an_   
_  
**infestation**   
_   
_? That they pollute what little there is to call the universe?_

"Dean. I'm _fine_. Can we get back to the case?"

 _The way I look at it? I'm just doing my Father a favour._

"Geez, no need to bite my head off. Just sayin', if you're, y'know, feeling weird about this case or something, we can totally leave."

 _What do you say, Sammy? Will you cleanse this world with me?_

"No, no, I don't think – uh. Gah. Dean oh god _Dean_ –"

 _Just me and you. Forever. Let me back in, and we can escape to our destiny._

"Sam – Sammy? What the hell, man, what's wrong?"

 _You cannot refuse_.

" _Sammy_!"

* * *

Dean stares at his hands in the meagre light that filters into the room. There's a lone window, small and barred, high on one wall. Save for that, a rickety old cot and the steel door, the room is completely featureless. Dean, who's lived in more anonymous motel rooms than he can count, feels the emptiness of the room like an itch between his shoulders, burrowing, burrowing deeper.

" _Deeeeaaan_!"

He flinches, but makes no other movement. He knows there's not much he can do; the wall opposite him ( _the wall between him and Sam and goddammit why does it always come down to walls_ ) and the door are spattered with the blood from his previous attempts. His hands are bloody and swollen – definitely more than a few broken bones in there, he thinks, if the excruciating pain that accompanies every flex of his fingers is anything to go by – and his throat feels scraped raw from screaming.

" _Pleaaase oh god oh GOD STOP PLEASE –_ "

He recognises the scream, on a level that's beyond visceral. The last soul he tortured – or perhaps the first, he's not sure, he thinks that the whole experience went around in circles, where he'd start up cutting through the ribcage of one soul and finish slashing into the abdomen of another and then slit the throat of the first again –

He. He needs to _focus_. He needs to –

( _we can do this, Dean. We just have to wait._ )

\- _wait_. That's it. He'll wait and Sam will wait and they'll all wait for their next death, and then they'll wait to come back to life and pain and torment, and wait to die all over again –

"Your brother's getting close."

Dean starts and looks up. Uriel's in the room, that condescending smirk of his intact. He's not sure how he missed the angel standing there, but then again, he's not sure how long he and Sam have been cooped up here, with nothing but pain and terror as their fuel. It could've been days, hell, _weeks_ , as his exhausted body and wavering vision keep insisting.

"Go to hell," he whispers.

Uriel snorts. "I've had my share of visits to Hell – one of which involved saving your sorry hide." He shakes his head. "Do you have any idea how many of my garrison I lost to that mission?"

Dean doesn't answer, only looks away.

"And _then_ , I spend close to an eternity in Purgatory – crawling with the remains of scum even lower than you mud-monkeys – and now that I am back? I will _not_ tolerate your insouciance." Another blink, and Uriel's so close to him that if Dean lets his head droop a little bit – and he wants to, _so bad_ , he doesn't know how long it's been since he's slept – they can probably bump foreheads. The image draws a half-hysterical giggle from him.

"Your _brother_ ," breathes Uriel, "is being stubborn, and while I expect nothing more from something that's housed the Light-bringer, this obstinacy is not doing it any good. I've had to rip out every one of its extraneous _human_ senses for it to start looking within itself – to look at what it _truly_ is."

Dean's heart clenches with a familiar fear. "My _brother_ ," he forces through clenched teeth, "is a _person_. Not some random used toy."

"The only _person_ your brother is, Dean, is what is locked away behind that wall. Everything else is just... window-dressing." He straightens and turns away, contemplating the blood-spattered wall. "Perhaps, when he breaks, I can offer him to Hell. Perhaps, if my brothers arrive, I can regain control of my old band of friends." He turns and smiles. "Have you been praying hard enough, Dean? I hope so – I know Castiel never lets _you_ keep waiting."

He disappears.

Dean thunks his head back against the wall and lets the tears escape.

* * *

Uriel thinks he sees a crack.

It's not much – a sliver of light in a startlingly empty mindspace – but it's there, challenging him, beckoning to him. A thrill of anticipation runs through him at the thought of what he might see on the other side ( _the most beautiful of us all on his throne of flesh_ ) but for all that he throws himself against it, the wall will not yield.

The wall is a fragile thing, a pathetic thing, but it will yield only to the prodding of its owner.

Uriel pulls out of Sam's mind; the body lies limp on the bed, breathing shallowly, blood bubbling at the corners of its lips. It should've died long ago – but it's still _there_ , holding on to a frayed thread with preternatural tenacity. He's known for a long time that there's more to Sam Winchester than meets the eye, but –

" _Hello, brother_."

It's _sitting up_ – ribs flailing and pushing under the skin, and it should be _impossible_ , except when Uriel looks up he sees not two bloody holes, but sockets filling up with a coiling, oily miasma that reaches its tendrils down the sides of Sam's face, burrowing into the skin as if deriving strength from the blood that pulsed underneath. They're looking _right at him_ , and they're – they're –

" _You shall be rewarded_ ," it – he – Sam— _Lucifer_ says, through a mouth that has had its tongue ripped out several hours ago. " _Rewarded richly for your loyalty_ ," in a voice that sounds like the grating of fragments of brimstone and bone, and – Uriel reaches out one trembling arm, his grace seeping out of the pores of his vessel, desperate to touch the being he's been searching for for the better part of eternity...

"URIEL!"

Sam ( _Lucifer_ ) collapses abruptly like a marionette with its strings cut, and when Uriel turns, Castiel is standing in the doorway.

* * *

"Hey. Hey hey hey – take it easy, Sammy, I gotcha –"

 _Of course he's got you. Until the next time you say or do something that he doesn't like, and then – you're a monster, right?_

"Dean...?"

 _You'll always be that way to him, and you know it_.

"I _knew_ it. I knew this place wasn't good, this _case_ – you know what? That's it. I'm calling Bobby and having somebody else take this over. Because – _aaaagh_!"

 _Have you ever noticed how much he wants to control your life? Mould you into his version of the perfect little brother?_

"Gaaah... Dean? _Dean_!"

 _Pandering to his every wish... indulging his every self-destructive habit..._

"Dean, Sam. You both are quite resilient, are you not? Like a particularly virulent disease."

 _When you can be_ _ **you**_ _, and not just Dean's responsibility_.

" _Uriel_? Yeah, _you're_ one to talk about coming back from the dead!"

 _I'm here, Sam. I'll always be on your side, not on the side I want you to be_.

"Funny how half an eternity in Purgatory drains one of all patience. I _know_ , Dean. I know about what you did to stop the Apocalypse, I know what's happening to your brother. I can accelerate the process, unless you choose to have a smidgeon more respect!"

 _I'll always be here_.

* * *

The wall explodes.

Dean's halfway to oblivion – he's so goddamn _tired_ , tired of waiting, tired of living – when he's brought abruptly back into awareness by two figures crashing into the room. Decades of honed instinct has him scrambling out of the way of flying debris and two struggling angels. Castiel has his sword at Uriel's neck, straddling him as he pins him to the ground. Uriel's gripping his brother's arm, white-knuckled hands keeping the sword point from plunging into his throat.

"What could you have possibly hoped to achieve through this, Uriel?" Castiel says through clenched teeth.

Uriel smiles. "I have seen _him_ ," he says. "And that is enough."

Castiel's eyes widen. "You have –"

"Yes, I have, Cas-ti- _el_!" Uriel begins to laugh, high and hysterical. "You can kill me now, you can send me right back into Purgatory, but I have _achieved_ what I set out to _do_!"

His grip weakens, and Castiel's sword finishes its trajectory, skewering through the other angel's throat. Castiel pulls it out even as the vessel begins to jerk in its death-throes. He looks at Dean, eyes wild with a panic Dean has rarely seen before. "Sam," is all the angel says, and Dean hurtles through the hole in the wall to his brother.

Sam lies on a mattress soaked in blood, sightless, deathly still. His body is twisted in strange angles ( _like the world's biggest pretzel,_ Dean thinks and he wants to laugh and laugh and laugh), and his jaw is slack, the stump of his tongue still oozing blood. And _yet_ – when Dean gets closer, so close the smell of blood is like needles being pushed into his nostrils, when he sees Sam is _still_ breathing, that's when the tears begin to come.

 _Please give up, Sammy. Just this once_.

Castiel kneels beside him and places a hand gently on Sam's chest. The air shimmers and ripples, and Sam's body begins to knit itself back together – broken bones realigning, joints popping back into their sockets, lips of torn-open gashes rejoining. Sam gasps and arches his neck, back, back, and when he slumps back on to the mattress, his eyes and tongue are restored.

"Dean." Castiel is looking at him now, and there is regret and sorrow and hesitation on that face, and Dean thinks he should probably respond ( _we waited and then we waited are we going to die yet_ ), but Sam's stirring; Sam's looking at him with wide eyes that dart restlessly, as if getting used to the fact that they're back.

"Sam," Dean says, carding a hand through sweaty, blood-matted hair, "it's okay, dude. It's over."

His brother shakes his head, limbs twitching. "I can, I can," he whispers, "I can still hear him... still, in my head, hear him..."

Then his eyes roll back, and he starts seizing.

* * *

Uriel falls.

From desolation above to hope below, he falls.

 _I trust you to save me, brother_.

* * *

"Please, don't do this."

 _Don't beg, Sammy._

"Oh, I'm not going to _do_ anything, don't worry. You'll be _doing_ everything... with a little encouragement from me."

 _Take._

"Just – no. Please, please –"

 _Let me guide you, Sam. Let me in._

"Perhaps... we can start with simple physical torture. These kinds of things need to be worked from below upward, after all."

 _You think two centuries of being together is all that ties me to you? Oh, no, Sammy, we've been destined for each other from the moment my Father deemed I should Fall._

"You can't possibly hope to achieve anything substantial through this; Castiel won't –"

 _Let me through, Sammy. We have a mission._

"Oh, so now _you're_ presuming my motives? Lucifer's vessel you might be, but you're just as dense as the rest of the mud-monkeys. We shall start!"

 _You will let me in_.

* * *

"I... am not sure how this came about, but I am sorry."

Dean dips his head over his brother's chest, feeling too tired – too goddamn _exhausted_ , that's it, like somebody'd pulled the plug on a vital reserve – to shout at the angel. "We waited," is all he says, "Sam said you'd come. Sam said this is how we helped you, helped in your goddamn _civil war_."

Castiel considers his sleeping brother with those sad eyes of his. "Uriel's return... was unexpected. The battles in Heaven, they've been – intense. And difficult. I –"

"I'd love to hear your excuses some other time, Cas," Dean says, and he pretends not to notice the twitching around Castiel's eyes, the hint of anger in the brief cock of his head. "But right now? You can either tell me if Sam's gonna wake up, or you can get the _hell_ out of here."

Castiel doesn't say anything, just places his hand over Sam's chest again. It seems a long, long while before he moves again, eyes fixed on some distant spot, fingers twitching ever so slightly. When he _does_ move, it's with a slowness that's as close to human grief as Castiel's ever gotten. His head hangs, and he runs the hand helplessly through his hair. Dean's heart drops like a stone.

"It's too late," Castiel says, "his mind has been _ravaged_ , and – everything in there reeks of Lucifer's pollution." He finally meets Dean's eyes. "There might not be much of Sam to salvage –"

( _i never did thank you for saving my soul, did i_ )

Dean clutches at Sam's jeans, bows his head, feels his eyes burn. "Okay," he says. "Okay. You can leave."

( _thank you, dean._ )

"Dean –"

"I said you can _leave_!" Dean gets to his feet, swaying dangerously, but fuelled by an anger that's materialised out of nowhere ( _except he knows exactly where it's coming from_ ). "You can go back to your friggin _war_ , because Sam and me? We're having none of it. Not Purgatory, not that crazy Mother chick, not your dysfunctional family and their schoolyard squabbles. Do you understand me?"

"I understand, Dean," the angels replies patiently, "but you haven't let me complete. I said that there might not be much of Sam to salvage, not that he _can't_."

 _No._ Dean shakes his head; he's given too much to blind hope before, only to have things end up ten times worse than they were in the first place. But Castiel is already talking, moving forward, hand ghosting over Sam's brow. "I can't rebuild the wall – nor can I guarantee a complete cure – but I can help your brother... fight back Lucifer."

Dean blinks at him. "What?"

"The devil is inside his head," Castiel says. "There's a part of Lucifer that'll always be a part of Sam, and I – I can help Sam to hold him back long enough to heal."

"Can he," Dean whispers, "can he heal?"

"It's Sam," Castiel says simply, and Dean feels the truth of that statement resonate in his bones. It's _Sam_ , his little brother, the little brother who's been destined to be used as a cosmic chess-piece since he was six months old, who's been through more suffering than Dean can possibly take stock of - and he's always come through. Always.

( _not revenge. redemption._ )

"Okay," he says.

Castiel nods and leans over Sam. "Close your eyes."

Dean throws an arm over his eyes just as the whole room begins to glow, with Castiel at the centre, a tiny white sun. He feels the heat scorching his forearms just before it recedes, and when he opens his eyes, Castiel's vessel lies empty on the floor, and Sam's body glows with a soft, pulsing light. He settles down next to Sam's cot.

Dean waits and prays.

  
**  
_Finis_   
**   



End file.
